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The approach is that the best way to use unwanted circumstances on the path of enlightenment is not to resist but to lean into them.

Pema Chodron

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Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Circumstances
Path
Use
Best
Unwanted
Way
Lean
Resist
Enlightenment
Approach

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed.
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It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.
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Patience is not learned in safety.
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When we protect ourselves so we won't feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of of the heart.
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Tonglen practice begins to dissolve the illusion that each of us is alone with this personal suffering that no one else can understand.
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True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.
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we come to realize that other people's welfare is just as important as our own. In helping them, we help ourselves. In helping ourselves, we help the world.
Pema Chodron
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Use your life to wake you up.
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If you aren't feeding the fire of anger or the fire of craving by talking to yourself, then the fire doesn't have anything to feed on.
Pema Chodron
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If your everyday practice is open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that - then that will take you are far as you can go. And then you'll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.
Pema Chodron
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We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good... The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller.
Pema Chodron
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Someone needs to encourage us not to brush aside what we feel. Not to be ashamed of the love and grief that it arouses in us. Not to be afraid of pain. Someone needs to encourage us: that this soft spot in us could be awakened, and that to do this would change our lives.
Pema Chodron
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Difficult people are the greatest teachers.
Pema Chodron
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If you're invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.
Pema Chodron
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Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what's going on.
Pema Chodron
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To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
Pema Chodron
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We don't set out to save the world we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.
Pema Chodron
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In the end, that's what we all need more than anything else: to be there for each other, in every kind of situation.
Pema Chodron
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Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want.
Pema Chodron
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Meditation is not about getting out of ourselves or achieving something better. It is about getting in touch with what you already are.
Pema Chodron